These essays cover a variety of topics in theology, religious devotion, and the life of Christ, sometimes with a bit of philosophy and theology. Some touch areas that have long troubled me, and when I felt I had a useful answer, I wanted to share it.

How could anyone be unable to make pancakes — at any rate, from a mix? We underestimate our assumptions! There can be a smart person who cannot do this, and in every form of knowledge, there are people who don't share our assumptions, our experiences, the things we naturally bring to our endeavors. Something to remember.

Many people have a hard time with the way Jesus speaks to his mother at Cana. I think that the exchange is about an uncertainty because she knew that there would come a time in his public life when she must ask for nothing. But it had not yet come.

This is the place where we pray for couples that their wine may not run out, or that they will ask Mary's help if it seems to have run short.